Athletics and Football (extract)

202 ATHLETICS the handicap runners came to see their heroes ruand, athletic clubs flourished and waxed rich ; while many a cricket,rowing, or football club netted a nice little sum ou oifts annual sports, which camine asa handyaddition to theclub's revenuesA. t the present day there is rather a plethora of athletic meetings, and while theandicaps still draw large entries from competitors, who expectthere wbiell alteast three valuabplreizes, we have something more than a suspicion that the public has been driven away from attending sports by being bored with a succession of these dreary competitionsI.n sprinrtaces one heat is very much liakneother, and, as a rule, threally good runners are unplaced, or give up against the unequal odds ; while ainmile racew, here there is a cloud of runners, none but thexperienced eye casnee whois making whaiys to the front, or really running above his form, and so doing well. The effeocft this tihs at thpeublic beigsinning to get tired of the monotonoyf athletics, and of late yeartshe attendance, of ladies especially, has become less and lesfrsequ nt. In London the waninogf the popularitoyf athletic spwoirthts the paying public has been very marked of recent years, much more so than in the provinces, but generally it is admitted with perfect frankness by the promoters of athletic meetings in all large towtnhsat there is ' very littlemoney in athletics now.' At Birmingham there have been very few athletic meetings recently, and in Londo , LiverpMooaln,chester, etc., the clubs are not so flourishing as they were formerly, owing to the falling off" of ' gate money.' As we have hinted before, we believe one causoef this decadence is the mistake made by the managing committees of meetings in giving so few level open raceCs.ertainly the big provincialmeetings of the North, where there are plenty loefvel races, anwdhere, even in the handicaps, the ' cracks' are leniently treatned encouraged to enter, commabnigdger gat'es and' better fiel;ds andeven Londoners are at last beginning to learn that one cr'ack' will do morteo make a success a ofmeetingthan fifty ' crocks.' At every meeting, however, thmeurest be acertain number